Robert, Have one more photo to take then will dump it all here. BUT - have never posted a photo to trainboard message area, where do I click to attach photos?
You have to post all your photo's on the web somewhere, and Railimages is the best place. Then you view the picture properties so you know the address of the picture, something like "http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/data/506/DSC02042.JPG" would be the address. Then you press the icon that looks like tiny yellow box with a mountain and the moon, which is the "Insert Image" button, and past the url of your image in it. You could also use UBB code like this but without the spaces between the brackets and the url "to place the picture into your post. You can only have 4 images per post, including smileys, so you have to post a reply to add more.
What a great idea Robert. Glen, open a account from Railimages, and upload the pictures. Then when you post the pictures in the tread, all you have to do is link it. If you need help, we can help you step by step.
Notes on MTL GP35 dis-assembly, cleaning, and re-assembly. - by Glen Chenier For those into Do-It-Yourself locomotive repair, this is a procedure to help ease the process. Warning – do not attempt this unless you have the proper tools, good eyesight and magnifier, good hand-eye-coordination motor skills, and lots of patience. Cautions: When holding small parts with tweezers, apply only enough pressure on the tweezers to hold the part. Too much finger pressure on the tweezers will not hold the part tighter, instead will launch the part into neverland never to be seen again. Vacuum the floor/carpet first to aid in finding lost parts later with the vacuum cleaner and a fresh bag. Use a clean location for you work, preferably on a fresh sheet of paper, to avoid placing even more foreign particles into your locomotive. If you have cat(s), always place all parts in a sealed container whenever you leave your workplace, otherwise if the cat jumps onto your workbench small parts will be sCATtered everywhere. Do not drink beer or any other alcoholic beverage while working on your locomotive. Unlike the MTL F7, the GP35 is a real bear to re-assemble, you will need all your motor skills and mental faculties intact. A good magnifier is a necessity. Pull off the fuel tank, easy snap removal. Remove the shell as described in the instruction sheet with 2 toothpicks inserted in the corner side holes in the front of the fuel tank to spread and release the shell. If the siderails are loose from handling fasten again with a drop of CA glue on a toothpick. Put the shell in a safe place away from the work area to avoid damage from dropped tools or rubbing alcohol splashes (cleaning solvent and very effective paint remover/destroyer). To identify the front of chassis note the chassis guide screw hole is set back farther from the front than the screw in the rear. Front left chassis has the pcb retaining post, not shown on drawing. With a small seamstress needle pass a 1-2 foot length of sewing thread through motor springs before removing to prevent flyaway. Bend the motor terminals outwards first to allow room for the needle without straining and possibly breaking the spring, or once partially on the needle (inserted from the pcb end) the spring can be removed safely then slid all the way onto the thread for safekeeping. Remove the springs with tweezers by stretching the spring slightly to release it’s hooked ends from the pcb (printed circuit board) and motor terminals. Motor springs large hook to pcb, small hook to motor terminal. PCB must be bent slightly and lifted over left front retaining post. Post is not shown on drawing. Front of pcb is D2, rear is D1. If desired the pcb can be removed after the chassis halves are loosened. Undo the 3 screws left chassis side as viewed by the engineer with wheels towards you and front end to your left, bushing tabs are on the right casting. Hold motor in place through chassis cutout while gently prying chassis halves apart with a small flat screwdriver twisted in the gap at alternate ends. Holding the motor down helps prevent the wormshaft bushings from lifting out of their chassis cavities and disrupting the bushing tabs from their right chassis slots. Chassis separator spacers have additional small post that fits a chassis hole. Truck casting separator spacers have raised flat portion positioned upwards. Truck gears are not identical. One gear has 13 teeth and mounts on the top post to mesh with the worm, the 2 other gears have 12 teeth and mount on the bottom posts to mesh with the wheel axle gears. Motor text upside down through left chassis half. # 261510 from www . maxonmotor . com (remove spaces in URL). Motor terminals to front. Small flywheel to front, large flywheel to rear. Do not attempt to remove flywheels, can break motor shaft. Note orientation of wheelwiper tops. In drawing they point away from the coupler, in reality they point either way. Should not matter. If replacing a wiper it might be tempting to install opposite to other truck half to ease re-assembly when truck twisted into place – both wipers will then be snag-free. Note drawing error, there are 2 wipers per truck, not 3. Rear center bushing tab slot in right chassis is only 2.5mm length, the others are 2.7mm length. Bushing tabs are offset, flush with one end, inset from other end. Insets toward worms, flush ends with 2 indents away from worms. This is very critical during re-assembly. Thin plastic shim washers on each end of worm are not shown in the drawing. They tend to stick to the bushings, don’t lose them. One washer each end between worm and bushing. When handling the truck castings avoid pressing on the outwards bent portion of the wheelwipers. This will cause them to bend inwards, too many cycles of bending and straightening will cause them to break. Dust gets trapped between wheels and wipers, in the gears etc. If allowed to accumulate it can prevent wiper electrical contact to the wheel and cause severe stalling, in extreme cases can bend the wiper out of adjustment. Dis-assemble truck, pick out lint, dust, pet hairs from wheels, wipers, sideframes and small gears with tweezers, bathe all parts in 91% rubbing alcohol, scrub each piece gently with toothbrush to remove crud, do not bend the wheelwipers while cleaning. It is not necessary to remove the wheelwipers from the truck castings, a small post-it note paper folded sticky edge can be wiped between the wiper and casting to attract and remove dirt. The small gears transfer this crud to the worms, if necessary clean the worms too. Dis-assemble joint from end of wormshaft (pull), remove bushings, remove the small plastic shim washers from between bushings and both worm ends (these tend to stick to the bushings, remove them and store in a safe place, easy to lose these), and bathe worms and bushings in alcohol. Blow bushings clean and gently ream with small toothpick to remove old lube and crud. Remove crud from worm teeth by brushing clean with old toothbrush and alcohol. Note – if the tracks are vacuumed regularly, the dust bunnies will not get into the loco in the first place. Reassembly – Verify wheel gauge with the MTL #920 tool, adjust if necessary. Squeeze with parallel jawface pliers or pry apart with bent tweezers under one wheel braced against tweezers under the opposite wheel. Use the bent tweezer as the pry lever. The 3 gears in each truck are NOT identical. The larger gear (13 teeth) goes to the top and meshes with the worm. The other 2 gears (12 teeth) are on the bottom and mesh with the wheel axle gears. They will fit the wrong way but do not operate properly. There is no distinction made on the assembly drawing. Relube wheel axles, small gear axles very lightly. When handling the truck castings avoid pressing on the outwards bent portion of the wheelwipers. This will cause them to bend inwards, too many cycles of bending and straightening will cause them to break. Outside of the sideframe with the wheels in the truck slots and truck castings held together with fingers and the plastic spacers inserted with flat side up, adjust wiper-to-wheel contact pressure so wipers barely touch both wheels at the same time, set each equally away from truck castings at the same distance as the flanges on the wheelset. Check that wheelsets when slid back and forth that both wipers move, but should lose contact at travel extremes limited by the axle gear. This ensures contact without excessive friction. Re-assemble truck castings, be sure that the top gear post on one casting fits into the hole on the opposite casting before tightening the sideframe screws. Otherwise the casting tops will be too far apart and will be stiff (tight lateral free play or swivel) in the chassis. http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/data/506/wheelwiper_to_chassis.jpg Set top of chassis wiper halfway between sideframe and truck post. If slightly angled outer edge towards bottom will make reassembly easier, wiper less likely to snag and bend. Top wiper tabs point away from couplers towards loco center in assembly drawing, there is a left and a right wiper with opposed bends. Many are factory set with the wipers pointing towards the coupler, appears to make no difference. If the motor was removed re-install into the right chassis half with the terminals and small flywheel to the front (the end with the larger space between chassis end and guide screw) and the text facing upwards away from the right chassis half. It the text is positioned downwards towards the right chassis half the motor will run backwards. MTL GP35 assembly - RailImages.com If worms were dis-assembled for cleaning, re-assemble wormshafts long end with shim washer first, then bushing with tab inset towards worm (details next paragraph, there is a critical front/rear to these bushings orientation that is not obvious at first), then joint to flywheel pressed on as far as it will go. Install shim washer then bushing with tab inset towards worm on short ends of wormshafts, tab details next paragraph. MTL GP35 assembly - RailImages.com Wormshaft bushing tabs must be seated into right chassis slots and are not reversible, there is a definite front/rear to these bushings. On one end of the bushings the tab is flush with the end, also there are two indentations 180 degrees apart in the flat of this end. The other end the tab is set back (inset) by about 0.2mm and there are no indentations in the flat. The bushing tab inset ends MUST be positioned towards the worms, the bushing tab flush ends (with the 2 indentations in the bushing end) positioned away from the worm. If not assembled this way there will be binding on the wormshaft when the chassis halves are fastened together and the motor will slow down from friction overload and draw more current. MTL GP35 assembly - RailImages.com Lift each end of the motor slightly and insert wormshaft joints into flywheels one at a time, or assemble motor and wormshafts together then and drop into the right chassis as one unit. Be sure to orient the bushing tabs downwards as described in the above paragraphs. It helps the center bushings find their tab slots if first pulled AWAY from the motor along the wormshaft and then rotated with a finger until the tab snaps into place. This snap is definite and easily felt – you will know when it happens. Do the same with the end bushings. If worms were bathed relube lightly at each end of worms. MTL GP35 assembly - RailImages.com The wormshafts should lie perfectly flat and straight. If not, a bushing tab is not seated properly in it's right chassis slot and must be corrected before proceeding. Press chassis halves together lightly with right side down so bushings do not dislodge, then twist trucks in by inserting one side first without bending wiper to chassis contact, then the other in the direction that wiper does not snag on chassis, chassis must be slightly separated for this truck insertion. If all bushing tabs remained properly seated in the right chassis half the gap between the chassis halves should be about 0.65mm. If space is 0.7mm or greater a tab is caught between chassis halves or one or more tabs is jammed against the bushing cavity and must be corrected. Temporarily power the motor with a short section of handheld powered track pressed against the motor terminals. The motor and wheels should not slow down when the chassis is pressed together with finger pressure. If there is a slowdown when the chassis halves are squeezed together with either finger pressure or the chassis screws, check that the bushing tabs insets are aligned towards the worms and properly seated in their right side chassis slots as described above. When inserting the chassis screws turn lightly to start to allow the screw to find the original self-tapped thread, this prevents damage to the chassis insulators. If new threads are cut each time the screw is started eventually all threads will be destroyed and the screw will no longer tighten. Tighten just snug, do not overtighten or the threads can strip. Re-install the pcb. The marking D2 goes to the front and should be visible from the top, the LEDs hang below the pcb. If the pcb is installed upside down the wrong LED will light. Make sure to hook the pcb edge behind the retaining post after you manage to get all four corners started into their chassis retaining slots (not easy) so LED D2 cannot push the cab forward, sometimes D2 may be too far forward and push the cab with the pcb in place, unsolder the LED from the pcb and reposition if necessary. Install the motor springs with the thread still in them. Make sure the motor springs (small hooks through motor terminals) do not touch the flywheel. Bend motor terminals outwards if necessary. The larger spring hooks go to the outer pcb holes directly above the motor terminals. Pull out the sewing thread AFTER the springs are fully installed to prevent flyaway during install. Test run the loco. It should now be perfect. I do MTL F7 and GP35 repairs. Contact me if your locos need repair and you do not want to do the above yourself. Glen Chenier http://www.wheelwipers.com
Yes, please help. Have 9 photos stuck in Railimages and still cannot figure out how to transfer them into this thread. Where is the icon that looks like tiny yellow box with a mountain and the moon, which is the "Insert Image" button? Every time I try a new thing on a computer I end up totally bugg**ing it up. In my previous post somehow the URL to maxonmotors got changed into a ad blurb. ARRRGGGHHH!
Glen, I inserted two of your pictures into your post, so you can see how its done .This is how you post a pictures. 1. click on Railimages 2. click on my photo in the top left of the page. 3. you should see your pictures 4. click on the picture you want to post 5. right click then go all the way to the bottom of the menu to access properties 6. copy the url 7. paste the url into the tread following the format I use on your post Thats all you need to do.
Thanks for your help, managed to get some thumbnail images to show up. In step 1 there are two 'Railimages", only one of which leads to "My Photos" Once there a right click gives the url which shows in the post only as url text. Double click on the image gives a url which gives a thumbnail image in the post, maybe because /img is included? The remaining 5 photos I left as url text since cannot post more than 4 images. Whatever, the reader can click on the text to see the photo. Now how do I make them big photos instead of thumbnails?
Glen, click on the photo you want to post first, and it will open to a full size picture, You should see only one picture.then you copy its url. It looks like you copy the url of the thumnail picture.
Guys! I just want to say "thank you" for all this! It will help a lot of people (me included) I'm sure. Again, thanks for your time. Ben
Bumping this thread... so, Loren can find it easily. But, also... this is really good information for folks that don't know. Thank you Glen and John!
